Ignore gentle fights involving children, initially (7)
I believe the answer is:
neglect
'ignore' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'gentle fights involving children initially' is the wordplay.
'fights' is an anagram indicator (I've seen 'fighting' mean this (I've seen this in other clues)).
'involving' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'initially' suggests taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'children' is 'c'.
'gentle' anagrammed gives 'neglet'.
'neglet' enclosing 'c' is 'NEGLECT'.
(Other definitions for neglect that I've seen before include "Lack of proper care" , "Lack of due care and attention" , "Fail to care for properly" , "Treat carelessly" , "Failure to give proper care" .)